The man is accused of murdering 73-year-old criminal defence lawyer Stavros Georgiou inside the victim’s own law office. He has confessed to the killing and faces criminal charges of premeditated homicide committed in a calm state of mind, theft, and illegal residency in the country. He was also already wanted on an outstanding arrest warrant for the sexual abuse of a minor and for violating Greece’s law on narcotics.

According to his lawyer, Christos Psarras, who took on the defence last Friday, the charge against his client was changed from theft to robbery this morning.

Speaking to police, the accused reportedly said: “I didn’t want to hurt him, I just wanted to leave the flat. We argued, everything happened very quickly. I hit him in various parts of the room. I left him unconscious, took the laptop and left.”

The 28-year-old was also remanded in custody in connection with the second case against him, relating to the charge of sexually abusing a minor and violating narcotics laws. An arrest warrant had been issued against him in relation to this case last May.

“I received instructions to defend the accused in this case as early as Friday, not through legal aid. I received a phone call in which he asked me to go to GADA (the Athens General Police Directorate), where he was being held. We had a conversation, and following that conversation I decided I wanted to take on his defence, because there are things that may have been distorted in the press. Not everything is as it has been presented,” said his lawyer, Christos Psarras.

The lawyer went on to offer “my heartfelt condolences to his (the deceased’s) family. He was a man who served in criminal justice for more than four decades, and his loss is certainly keenly felt.”

He added: “Secondly, I am not going to go into the substance of the case regarding what the accused said, at least concerning the primary offence. The offences were far more than one. There was premeditated homicide. There was robbery, a charge that was changed. The theft became robbery an hour before we entered the interrogation. There was the charge of illegal residency in the country. There was the charge of drug trafficking and abuse relating to the sexual abuse of a minor, for which the warrant had been issued in 2024.”

Concluding his remarks, Mr Psarras said he would not comment further on the substance of the case, stressing that “pre-trial proceedings in all, in all trials, are governed by the principle of confidentiality. I am not prepared to violate it.”